BERKELEY, Calif. -- Some graduating University of California law students
used their commencement Saturday to denounce a professor who helped the Bush
administration develop a legal framework that critics say led to the abuse of
Iraqi prisoners.

About one-quarter of the 270 graduates of Berkeley's Boalt School of Law
donned red armbands over their black robes in a silent protest of a legal memo
law professor John Yoo co-wrote when he served in the U.S. Justice Department's
Office of Legal Counsel.

Outside the ceremony, they also passed out fliers denouncing Yoo for
"aiding and abetting war crimes." Yoo said beforehand he didn't plan
to attend the graduation.

"I respect freedom of thought, but I think he should abide by some basic
moral standard," said Andrea Ruiz, 35, one of the armband-wearing students.
"Respect for human persons is at the core of what the law is about."

The Jan. 9, 2002, memo, first reported by Newsweek magazine Monday, laid out
the legal reasons why the United States didn't have to comply with international
treaties governing prisoner rights. It argued that the normal laws of armed
conflict didn't apply to al-Qaida and Taliban militia prisoners because they
didn't belong to a state.

Yoo, who worked for the Justice Department between 2001 and 2003, wouldn't
comment on the memo or his government work, but said the students have a right
to express their opinions.

"I'm happy to listen to their viewpoints. Beyond that I'm not going to
change what I think," Yoo, 36, said during a telephone interview Friday.

A petition signed by nearly 200 law students and alumni since Thursday
alleges that Yoo's memo "contributed directly to the reprehensible
violation of human rights in Iraq and elsewhere."

"We're embarrassed that he's at our institution," said law student
Abby Reyes, who launched the petition. "We came to law school in order to
uphold the rule of law, not to learn ways to wiggle our way out of compliance
with it."

The student petition urges Yoo to repudiate the memo, declare his opposition
to torture and encourage the Bush administration to comply with the Geneva
Conventions that protect the rights of prisoners of war. Otherwise, he should
resign, the petition says.

Yoo said he had no plans to resign.

"To the extent that the petition goes beyond expressing views, I worry
that it's an unfortunate effort to interfere with academic freedom," he
said.

Interim Dean Robert C. Berring Jr. said the law school had no plans to
discipline Yoo.

"The image of Berkeley is the very progressive image," Berring
said, "but I think you'd find at Berkeley a pretty wide range of opinions.
Professor Yoo is certainly not the only conservative on campus or at the law
school."

During a May 13 appearance on "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," Yoo
said he thought the pictures of prisoners being abused at the Baghdad prison
showed clear violations of the Geneva Conventions.

"So the question is not whether the Geneva Conventions apply or really
whether they're violated or not but how we're going to remedy the situation, and
the military is undertaking that," he said, adding that violators should be
punished and tried